The horror beach of Seville: María Trifulca

Seville is with her high temperatures and beautiful weather one of the hottest cities in Europe. Therefore, it is very nice to cool down in the water during the hot summer days. Back in the days, for this, many people went to the beach in the city itself. But Seville is not located on the coast, so Seville couldn’t have a beach? Well, actually Seville had a beach named “La playa María Trifulca”, better known as the hell of Seville…

If you want to know why continue reading because in this blog we’ll tell you everything about this beach which was situated in Seville.

The left riverbank

For this story, we have to go back to the mid-20th century, the years before the V Centenario bridge was built. In that time Seville had a beach along the Guadalquivir, which extended on both riverbanks. The left riverbank and the right riverbank. When the temperatures were very high, many families, friends, and fishermen came to the river to cool down or enjoyed their sardines, ice cream, soft drinks, or sweets which they could buy at the sales stalls on the beach. All this happened at the left riverbank.

A bag of dirty clothes

The right riverbank, the farthest, was for another public. This was the most favorite place of prostitutes and homosexuals, they used the beach for another purpose, prostitution. There were many sailors who docked at the ports of Las Delicias or Tablada to hire the services of the prostitutes. Sailors who weren’t at the first moment interested in these services were exposed to visits of the other prostitutes who didn’t have a company that night. So it was often seen how many women crossed the bridge to search for a lost sailor. Besides a pleasant evening, the prostitutes also offered to wash the clothes of the sailors in the river. That was the reason why one saw them often with a bag of dirty clothes.

A grumpy old lady

The name of the beach “La Playa María Trifulca” comes from an old lady named María, she was known for her work at a famous sales stall on the beach. Because of her grumpy character, many people called her “Trifulca” which means something like “discussion”.

Bad reputation

The water of the beach was crystal clear, there was a lovely smell of the eucalyptus trees. In short, it was a place that made the summers of every Sevillian much more pleasant. But very soon the beach has got a very bad reputation. Prostitution was one of the reasons for this bad reputation, because it happened more often on the right bank, but eventually also on the left bank. Another reason was the fact that the river cost many people their life because of the irregularity of the river, there were a lot of vortices, which could lead to drowning. An industrial disaster on 23 July 1941, which caused many fires near the beach was the last straw. Since then, the number of visitors has decreased. So finally, in the 1960s the beach permanently closed.

Drownings, prostitution, and a grumpy old lady, all reasons why María Trifulca was not really a beach where you wanted to go. So if you want to cool down in Seville, you can better go to a swimming pool!